Life In Technicolour
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Why has Lisbon's youngest brother turned up at the office? Even worse, why is he carrying a photo album? Slight Jisbon.


**Life In Technicolor**

"Do not even _think _about it!"

"I'll do it."

"You wouldn't dare."

"I _so _would."

"If you hand them over, so help me _God_, Tommy-"

"Don't tempt me, Resa, I'm a man on the edge."

"You-"

"_Alright_!" Jane interrupted firmly. He stood diplomatically between the two Lisbon's, arms outstretched as he tried in vain to keep them apart the two who attempted over and over to try and, in their own words, destroy each other. "Lisbons, please, calm down."

"Do it and I'll destroy you!"

"Not if I destroy you first!"

Of course, this sort of scene was highly unusual for the CBI office. In fact, it was so unlikely that even Jane hadn't seen it coming. Their quiet day had been interrupted by the surprise arrival of the youngest Lisbon – Tommy. He'd strolled in as casually as if he did it every day, a visitors badge attached to the front pocket of his suede leather jacket. Jane had realised who he was straight away, considering the eyes and the nose that were identical to the only female Lisbon. However, unlike Teresa he was tall – almost as tall as Rigsby. He wondered if all of her brothers were this tall. In fact, the only reason he knew that this was Tommy (before he'd heard her scream his name several time) was because he came alone. Teresa had three brothers, all younger than her, but because of the time he 'accidentally' led her to believe that she was dying, he knew that for some reason Tommy did not have a good relationship with his other two siblings but had a tight bond with Teresa.

Tommy had gone into Teresa's office, leaving the door open as he opened his arms, a photo album tucked underneath one, and declared. "Surprise!" But his surprise wasn't turning up there when the pair hadn't seen each other since Christmas. The surprise wasn't not calling before he turned up at the office. The surprise was what was inside the photo album he was carrying.

"Put it away!" Teresa shouted at him, fighting against Jane's arm as it held her away from her younger brother. As soon as Teresa had realised what was in the album, she'd flipped out, trying to take it from her brother even though he was heading back into the bullpen and introducing himself to her team. By the time she caught up with him he was attempting to show the photographs inside to the team.

"No," Tommy said stubbornly. "Aunt Sarah gave them to me and said I could do whatever I want with them."

"And the two options she gave you were to put them somewhere safe or pass them on to me, Jack or Danny," she reminded him. "Or did you have a relapse of your selective hearing again?"

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked her, so engrossed in a particular open page of the album that he hadn't been listening to her. Her response was to almost growl from the back of her throat, a sound so different from what you'd expect even if you knew her well, so strange that Jane almost released her in surprise (and fear for his life). Almost. It was a good thing that he hadn't, as she might have ended up arrested for murder at that moment otherwise. Tommy grinned and held up the album. "Seriously, remember this day? It was the day that you and Jack went to the tree house to teach me how to climb up myself and-"

"Finish that sentence and I swear to God, I'll-"

"Alright, just _stop_!" Jane said loudly, making sure that his voice was louder than whatever profanity Teresa was about to scream at her brother. He had a feeling that this situation wasn't going to end well if left alone. A younger brother with a photograph album could be lethal, especially in her workplace, around her colleagues, with her boss almost within hearing distance if she drew any more attention to them for it.

At Jane's call, both of them stopped.

"Right," Jane said in the sudden silence, catching the eyes of Cho, Grace and Rigsby, all of whom were more than happy to let him defuse the situation by himself. "Now, Tommy, if you could be so kind as to close the album." Tommy looked crestfallen. "Do it."

Grumbling something that sounded like 'its like having a frickin' dad again', Tommy snapped the album shut and held it securely underneath his arm again.

"Thank you," he nodded. "And Lisbon-"

"Yes?" they both snapped.

"Uh, _Teresa_," he corrected. "If you could-"

"I'm not doing anything," she decided stubbornly.

"Leave Tommy alone," he told her, as she stepped up to the hand he was using to shield Tommy away from her.

"_Excuse _me?" she challenged him, sending a shiver of fear through Jane for a moment. He'd been on the receiving end of one of these glares several times a day, and he wasn't eager to put himself in that position for the fifth time that morning. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and if he didn't do something Teresa was going to do something she was going to regret all in the name of her inner child's dignity.

"The more you fight him, the more he's going to retaliate," he explained. "You grew up with him, yes?"

"I _raised_ him," she corrected him.

"I'm assuming he read your diary once," he guessed.

Tommy laughed to himself, and Teresa glared at him over her shoulder. "All _three _of them photocopied the pages and posted them on Jason Robert's locker door!" she told him.

"The one you took a liking too," Jane assumed.

Tommy grinned, feeling safer to step closer to them now that his sister was no longer lunging for him. "You never did hook up with him, did you, Resa?"

"Why would he want to after what _you _did to me?" she shot back.

Tommy laughed, but stopped when he found Jane looking like he was taking Teresa's side. "What?" he asked innocently.

"That _is _rather mean," he told him.

"It was _evil_!" Teresa elaborated. "Pure evil."

"You love me really," Tommy smiled, ruffling his sister's hair and then stepping back out of reach when she lunged for him again. Thankfully, Jane managed to grab her first.

"You are an evil, spiteful, _mean _little brother," she growled.

Tommy nodded. "If that's so, then it would only be right for me to do the indecent thing that's expected of me, and hand these photos over to your friends here for their pleasure."

For a moment, Teresa's eyes filled with rage until it was replaced with complete terror. "Don't you _dare_!" Jane watched as Cho, Rigsby and Grace quickly moved away from their desks with empty mugs, deciding that this was the best time for a refill.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked her. "What do you think is in here?"

"I never liked having my photo taken, and you _know _it," she told him.

"You never thought you looked nice in photos," Jane realised. "So you hide from the camera."

"Clever man," Tommy told him. "Perhaps we should let _this _guy be the judge of it." Teresa's eyes widened as he opened up the album, flicking to a certain page. "Here we go, your last vacation with mom. Remember that one?"

"Tommy," she whispered, shaking her head.

"Yeah, that's right. Jack told me that you lost your bathing suit when dad took you all swimming in the lake. Jane, right?" he said, suddenly turning to the man in question.

"Patrick," he corrected.

"Patrick, right, you'll _love _this," he laughed. "It might be the most you ever get to see of my sister-"

"_TOMMY_!" she shouted, this time breaking free from Jane's arms. However, once free of his arms she stopped in front of her younger brother, looking at him with a mixture of anger and betrayal written all over her face. Now that she had the opportunity to grab the stapler nearest to her and do some damage with it, all she could think about was that her baby brother, whom she had raised in their mothers absence, was humiliating her in front of her colleagues and, lets face it, friends, as if it were the only thing he could do to repay her for the years of hard work on his behalf.

She could see in his playful eyes that he was forgetting that she'd missed out on moving away to the prestigious college she'd been accepted to because someone needed to be a sober parent to her brothers. He wasn't remembering how she'd helped him get the grades he needed to pass into the following year of school. He was forgetting the nights when he was very young, when she'd stay up and help him get back to sleep after his nightmares. He was forgetting how every day she had sacrificed her own pleasures, her own dreams, just so that he, Jack and Danny wouldn't get into any more trouble than they usually did, and that they had clean clothes, decent food, someone to remember to lock the door at night. Her first trip out in the car after she'd got her licence had been to go and college Tommy from the police station after he'd been caught stealing sweets with his friend. He'd been nine years old.

He couldn't remember.

"You don't remember," she realised. "You don't remember what I've done for you."

Tommy's smile faded, replaced with a look of confusion. "Resa-"

"No, don't '_Resa_' me," she scolded him. "If you're really going to humiliate me like this, then there's no way that you can remember what I've done for you...what I've sacrificed, what I've missed out on so that you could have better opportunities and a better life than an alcoholic father and a dead mother could provide," she shook her head, fighting the mortified tears that she really didn't want to add to the equation. "You can't remember, because if you did then you wouldn't be repaying me by completely humiliating me in front of the people I spent most of my day with. You don't remember me for what I became for you three, you're remembering me as who I was in those photographs. I haven't been that person since the day that mom died."

Before anyone could say another word, she turned on her heel and walked back into her office. As she did, her head bowed, one of her hands rising up as if to wipe away falling tears. Jane and Tommy were silent until the room was filled with the echoing sound of Teresa's office door slamming closed behind her. Straight away, Jane turned to look at Tommy, a disappointed look on his face.

"What?" he asked. "What did I do?"

"I think she's angry with you," Jane pointed out.

"No, seriously," he explained. "Our aunt gave me those photos because I asked for them."

"So you deliberately asked for embarrassing photos of your sister?" he asked.

"No, I asked him for the good ones," Tommy explained, casting a wary look at the closed office door. "Look, she'll probably kill me for this later on, but let me show you the pictures."

* * *

"Lisbon, can I come in?"

Teresa looked up at her door, hearing Jane's voice outside. "I'd rather be alone," she told him. After all, she'd given herself a moment to cry before forcing herself to be composed, and if Jane was going to give her the opportunity to refuse his company by actually asking permission to enter a room, she was going to take it.

"Please, Lisbon, it's just me."

When she didn't reply, he opened the door anyway. Straight away, he could see the dead tears on her cheek, and just as immediately, she could see the giveaway that had been the blue photo album in his arms. "He's shown you, hasn't he?" she realised, her voice quiet, yet void of emotion. Jane was silent, closing the door behind him and then going over to sit on her couch. He patted the space beside him. "Well?" she asked, not taking up his offer.

"Come sit," he said quietly. With an eye roll, she stood, heading over to the couch and sitting on the very edge with her hands in her lap. "Yes, he showed me," he nodded.

She groaned, leaning forwards and putting her hand on her temples.

"He showed me, and he explained," Jane continued.

"Explained what?" she asked tiredly.

He handed her the album. "Look at them," he told her, watching as she stared stubbornly at it for a moment. "Go on."

Surrendering, she took it from him and opening it. There was no point hiding the pages from his view because he'd already seen them, and she assumed he'd already figured out all sorts of details about her childhood by doing so. Instead of the horribly embarrassing photos she'd been expecting, though, she was met with smiling faces. Pictures from her childhood that she wasn't ashamed of. Snapshots of her mother and father, back before death and alcoholism and abuse had become the shadow over their family. Back before Tommy used to get in trouble, before Jack became a womaniser, before Danny hanging around with the boys who urged him to start smoking, before Teresa had taken over the motherly role. In these photographs, she was never older than twelve years old – the age she had been when their mother had died. Every photograph was beautiful; taken on holidays, birthdays, family outings...days she'd forgotten about because of the things that Tommy had forgotten about.

"Oh my god," she whispered to herself.

"He asked for the photographs," Jane explained as she flicked through the pages. "He wanted to show you the memories that you'd forgotten. He wanted to remind you that you had a happy childhood at some point, and that good times might be in the past but that doesn't mean that they have to stay there in memory."

"He never forgot," she realised, her eyes fixated on the last photo of her at nine years old, holding her third baby brother with her mother's arm reaching in from the corner, making sure that she was supporting baby Tommy's head.

"How could I?" came Tommy's voice from the doorway. Jane and Teresa both looked up. "How could I forget when you absolutely _everything_? How could I forget everything that you did for me when you did so much? For Gods sake, Resa, I was three years old when mom died. I hate that I can't remember her, and I hate that I have no memory of dad every being anything less than a jerk to us all, but if we didn't have _you_..." he trailed off, shaking her head.

"Why?" she asked him.

Tommy looked from her, to Jane. "She really doesn't remember, does she?"

Jane shook his head. "Hasn't caught on all morning."

Teresa looked between the two of them. "What am I supposed to be remembering?"

Tommy sat down on the other side of the couch, trapping his sister between Jane and himself. "Resa, these were the _good _times," he told her. "Before you had to start looking out for us, you used to be a normal kid. You, and Jack, and Danny...you used to run around and fight with each other, and shout and scream, and in between you used to read me books, take me into the yard and run around with me. And despite all the kid stuff, we used to get alone and sit together in photos...we were happy," he grumbled under his breath as if to make the moment seem less emotional for him than it actually was. "But then you had to grow up and we...we didn't. We carried on running around and fighting, and you had to start picking up the toys, cooking dinner, cleaning up. And you didn't go to college and you didn't go out to parties because you were taking care of us. And now...I graduated college with full honours. Jack's married with two kids on the honour roll and he owns his own company. Danny's marriage might have fallen apart but he has three boys who adore him and he's raising them right...all because _you _raised _us _right. I figured today you could use some good memories to hold on to...especially today."

"What's today?" she asked.

"The eleventh of July," Jane told her, watching her eyes widen in final recognition.

"Happy birthday, Resa," Tommy told her, indicating to the album in her hands. "Took us ages, we hope you like it."

She looked at him, astounded. "Us?"

"Me, Jack and Danny," he nodded.

"You're..."

"Speaking again, yeah. We realised that it was stupid, and that it was upsetting you, so...yeah."

"But all that fuss earlier..."

"Was just me being me," he explained. "Don't worry, the only photo from that camping holiday is of you and dad trying to light a campfire."

Teresa smiled, putting her arms around her brother. "Thank you, Tommy."

He looked uncomfortable, squirming away from her. "Yeah, whatever, you wanna stop with the girly hugs?" he said, and she released him. "And you can thank the others later."

"Yeah, I'll call them," she nodded.

"_Uh_..." Jane mumbled, suddenly making his presence known. "They're...closer than you think."

She turned to him. "Jane, what have you done?"

"_Me_?" he asked innocently. "Nothing."

She stared at him.

"Ok, so I'm not the ringleader, but I _am _involved."

"In what?" she asked.

"Your surprise party," he told her. She frowned at him. "Oh, come on. You didn't really think that we forgot your birthday, did you? Grace organised it, Cho tracked down your brothers..."

"And you?" she asked.

"I...may have flew them all down here, pretended not to know them and have given them a place to stay until you forgive them for arriving without telling you and let them crash at your place. Oh, and don't mention to Grace that you know about the party, she's worked really hard on it."

"And don't worry, Resa," Tommy assured her. "There are plenty more photos at the party."

"_Tommy_!"

END


End file.
